Teaching Science 2.0

So, a few years ago, I was in LA to lead a workshop.  My colleague and I came in a couple of days early to make sure everything was ready….it was, and we were getting bored.  What better way to spend the afternoon than to walk down Venice Beach. As we were trying to decide what to do that night, some guy shoved some pamphlets in our hands.  We took a look — free tickets to the taping of Comedy Central’s The Man Show (Starring Jimmy Kimmel & Adam Corolla).  As if we needed any more incentive, the tickets included FREE BEER!

So, we went and it was mostly entertaining.  It was pretty interesting to see how the show was made…and we got a couple of beers too.  When we left, there was a group of pretty obnoxious people doing obnoxious things, obviously drunk.  Only one problem…the FREE BEER was non-alcoholic!  Yeah, so these idiots got drunk on N/A beer…definitely not from Wisconsin!

So, what is the point of this story?

Did you hear?  Teenagers can get high on the Internet for free.

The web was bombarded today with stories about teenagers finding a new way to get high….with “music.”  It is called I-Dosing and it is all the rage (well, at least in Oklahoma).

At least, that’s what Oklahoma News 9 is reporting about a phenomenon called “i-dosing,” which involves finding an online dealer who can hook you up with “digital drugs” that get you high through your headphones.

…

“Kids are going to flock to these sites just to see what it is about and it can lead them to other places,” Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs spokesman Mark Woodward told News 9.

…

Oklahoma’s Mustang Public School district isn’t taking the threat lightly, and sent out a letter to parents warning them of the new craze. The educators have gone so far as to ban iPods at school, in hopes of preventing honor students from becoming cyber-drug fiends, News 9 reports.

Read More http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/07/digital-drugs/#ixzz0toEzUpCl

Better be careful, or your kids might end up like this:

If it sounds too crazy too be true…because it is.  It didn’t take much digging to find that I-dosing is a bunk. It is just a new way to separate teenagers from disposable income…while letting them feel like they are getting away with something.

From Psychology Today

In 1839, Heinrich Wilhelm Dove discovered that two constant tones, played at slightly different frequencies in each ear, cause the listener to perceive the sound of a fast-paced beat. Calling this phenomenon “binaural beats,” Dove helped launch two centuries of legitimate research and, as is almost always followed by exciting empirical study, money-grabbing pseudoscience.

First, the facts: Binaural beat therapy has been used in clinical settings to research hearing and sleep cycles, to induce various brain wave states, and treat anxiety.

But there are more controversial (dare I say dubious?) claims associated with binaural beats: Increased dopamine and beta-endorphin production, faster learning rates, improved sleep cycles, and yes, if you dig around less scientific communities like, oh, MySpace, you’ll find kids telling each other that “dude, those beats get you like totally high.”

If you’ve wandered through a Brookstone or Sharper Image store in your local shopping mall and noticed sleep therapy or “brain-controller” devices for sale, that’s just an upper middle class, “I need to stop thinking about my 401(k)” version of the same digital drug that the new crop of seedy i-dosing websites are offering to teens.

And from LiveScience…

However, the parents shouldn’t worry, as the music almost certainly does not cause a high, or encourage future drug use, said Harriet de Wit, the principle investigator of the University of Chicago’s human behavioral pharmacology lab.

Although experiments show that the expectation of getting high can enhance the symptoms associated with drugs, even when someone takes a placebo instead, no sound or music could trigger the exact pathways activated by specific drugs like PCP or Quaaludes, de Wit said.

Yeah, so just like those folks getting drunk on N/A beer, these kids are getting stoned on music.  It isn’t happening…not even on Venice Beach.

—————

This is cross-posted at Edutopia.

—————

If you have ever been to an education conference, you will probably agree that a lot of the best learning comes from the discussions between sessions, dinner, or at other “unscripted” times when you have the opportunity to share with other passionate professionals. We need these types of interactions to keep moving our craft forward.

#scichat provides a way for scientists and educators to engage in an ongoing discussion with the goal of sharing ideas, growing professionally and improving the teaching of science. This “hashtag” can be used at any time to share your thoughts or resources with other science educators. However, the real power of #scichat is to develop a community through real-time events every other Tuesday night (9:00 Eastern). The topic for each event will usually be selected in advance by the community.

Last week, educators from around the world participated in the first #scichat on Twitter. Participants shared ideas on how to increase the relevancy of school science. The discussion ranged from the role of textbooks, to discipline integration, to the incorporation of authentic projects and real-world events. A few of the participants took steps to collaborate on a project to have their students analyze TED videos this fall. A full transcript is available here.

Join us for the next #scichat! Use the Twtpoll or suggest a future topic in the comment section below.

The Next #scichat

Tuesday, June 22 @ 9:00 Eastern (Every two weeks)

Moderators: Eric Brunsell (@brunsell) & Jeff Goldstein (@doctorjeff)

Last week, I observed a discussion on Twitter related to Dan Pink’s new book, Driven: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. In this book, Pink reviews the psychological research related to motivation and applies it to business. On one side of the discussion, educators were excited about what we can learn about education from this book. On the other side was a strong critique of using business books to inform educational practice.

Pink’s Drive isn’t released (on Amazon, at least) yet, but this Ted Talk should give you a taste. (UPDATE: You can also read an interview with Public School Insights here.)

Pink states, “There is a mismatch between what science knows, and what business does.” The reward and punishment approach works for mechanistic “20^th Century tasks.” However, it doesn’t work for cognitively intense “21^st Century tasks.” This same statement is true in the classroom too. Extrinsic motivators and incentives may work to keep kids quiet, to keep them in their seats, and to compel them to memorize spelling lists and fact tables, but it builds a culture that trivializes learning. However, do we really need to wait for Dan Pink’s business book to tell us this?

Dan Pink is an engaging communicator and can present a well-crafted argument.  He is adept at “popularizing” research.  It is OK to read his book, but don’t forget - there are folks in education, experts even, that have already compellingly made this argument.

For example-

Alfie Kohn wrote about this nearly 20 years ago in the book Punished by Rewards.

In this groundbreaking book, Alfie Kohn shows that while manipulating people with incentives seems to work in the short run, it is a strategy that ultimately fails and even does lasting harm.  Our workplaces and classrooms will continue to decline, he argues, until we begin to question our reliance on a theory of motivation derived from laboratory animals.

Drawing from hundreds of studies, Kohn demonstrates that people actually do inferior work when they are enticed with money, grades, or other incentives. Programs that use rewards to change people’s behavior are similarly ineffective over the long run. Promising goodies to children for good behavior can never produce anything more than temporary obedience. In fact, the more we use artificial inducements to motivate people, the more they lose interest in what we’re bribing them to do. Rewards turn play into work, and work into drudgery.

Here is one of many examples from the research literature of mastery versus performance orientations and the impact on learning in science:

Pintrich and Sinatra (2003) state that a classroom environment that focuses on promoting mastery goals and dialogue for understanding is critical for learning to occur. The authors found that students hold one of two goals related to school achievement. Students that hold mastery goals focus on learning and understanding content. Students with performance goals focus on demonstrating their ability in comparison to other students. The researchers conclude that students who reported a focus on understanding as their primary goal orientation showed the greatest gains in conceptual understanding.

The students were actively engaged in activities and had an improved understanding of the concepts after the lessons. Students at the University of Michigan who endorsed mastery goal orientations showed a greater gain in their understanding of Newtonian physics than those students who did not endorse mastery goals. Students who espouse performance goals and do not endorse mastery goals show little or no improvement in conceptual understanding. In fact, performance goals without mastery goals have at best no effect on conceptual change, or may even hinder conceptual change. Mastery goals are promoted in contexts where the teachers emphasize learning and create situations where students can make choices and feel autonomous. Recognizing students for improvement can also help promote the adoption of mastery goals. Performance goals are promoted in contexts where teachers use normative grading and recognize students for their performance relative to others.

Dan Pink’s book is based on a wide body of research that has already been published. The premise of the book is that extrinsic motivators do not work for cognitively demanding tasks. That conclusion should be a ‘no-brainer’ for educators as it has been one of the pillars of progressive thinking for decades. But, instead of saying, “Well, duh!” educators will rush out (or online) to spend $20 to read how this applies to business.  What is the allure of books like A Whole New Mind, and Drive? Why do we need business “experts” to tell us what we should already know?

—

Pintrich, P. R. & Sinatra, G.M. (2003) The role of Intentions in conceptual change learning. In G. M. Sinatra & P. R. Pintrich (Eds.), Intentional Conceptual Change. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

To celebrate the beginning of the second week of the “brokenhagen” climate change socialist fest, I thought it would be a good time for me to reinforce the climate denier manifesto.  Taking these 16 statements to heart will serve you well as you join forces with Lord Monckton and Senator Inhofe to obfuscate and vociferate about the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on humankind.

If you doubt the need to join us in this effort, remember Obama’s fascist EPA wants to make it illegal for you to breathe.

A Climate Change Denier Manifesto:

A spectre is haunting the world - the spectre of global warming. All the powers of the world, in the name of a one world government, have entered into an unholy alliance to exorcise this false spectre.

Where is the opposition that has not hurled back the branding reproach of “climate change?”

To this end, wingnuts of various nationalities have assembled in Copenhagen and sketched the following manifesto, to be published in the English, French*, German*, Italian*, Flemish* and Danish* languages.

*Well, not really, since we don’t know them…and everyone should speak English anyway.

Below, we declare our principles and intentions:

1. I will confuse the scientific use of the word ‘theory’ with its casual meaning.
2. I will search the fringes of science for any instances of uncertainty and generalize it to all science.
3. I will ignore multiple sources of evidence in favor of a columnists’ unfounded claims.
4. I will bring up the 1970’s “global cooling” controversy, as proof that scientists are clueless even though more than six times as many research studies predicted warming.
5. I will find a single quote in thousands of pages of text that can be damning when used without context.
6. I will pick my comparison data from wherever I damn well please, even if it happens to be the hottest year ever.
7. I will pretend that scientists have ignored “natural cycles,” because I know the general public doesn’t have the time to read the dozens of studies debunking this claim.
8. I will make up facts and misrepresent data during interviews and op-eds because I know that journalists won’t call me on it.
9. I will deride “qualifications” as elitist.
10. I will repeat fabrications and falsehoods until they become perceived as the truth.
11. I will confound local weather with global climate because, well, it is too darn confusing.
12. When a scientists takes issue with my comments, I will accuse her of being dogmatic and stifling dissent.
13. I will claim that tens of thousands of scientists are in on the hoax so that they can cash in, while hiding my ties to big oil.
14. I will chastise scientists for being  apocalyptic fear mongers while claiming that the solution to the non-problem will destroy life as we know it.
15. I will deny warming on even days and deny human impact on odd days.
16. I will shoot the messenger – He invented climate change AND the Internet.

—————————————
For an example of our manifesto in action, please read this, exclusive commentary.  The author should be commended for integrating 13 of our 16 principles.

… The collectivist Left in academia, media and politics got away with imprinting this dogma on the popular mind only because generations of government-school graduates have been successfully stripped of knowledge of history, geology or climate science. There was a time when “science” was a rigorous search for truth that required an open skeptical mind, double-blind studies, multiple repeated experiments, peer-reviewed published data and a strong belief that if you are proven wrong, someone else got it right and the world will benefit. This approach was good enough for Pasteur, Newton and Ben Franklin, but not for today’s crowd.

–

…The real story here cannot be so easily buried. Climate-change prophets threaten millions with poverty if their schemes become law. A preview can be seen in the “man-made dust bowl” of Central California where water has been cut off to one of the most fertile and productive agricultural areas on Earth to “protect” a small fish that one judge thinks might be harmed if the water was used to grow food.

Who cares that those small fish are food for the salmon that west coast fishermen rely on?  I’m with the farmers…for whom do you stand?

P.S.  Seriously, Polar Bears?  Is that the best they can do?  Don’t they know that polar bears eat baby seals?

One of the most famous quotes in the history of spaceflight is “Failure is not an Option,” by Gene Kranz, Lead Flight Director during Apollo 13.  OF course, he was correct - NASA couldn’t afford to fail when lives were on the line.  This quote also shows up as the title of an education book. Over the years, I have seen the quote in many science classrooms across the country. Is this really the message that we want to send our students?  As former Packer quarterback Jim McMahn said, “…risk taking is inherently failure prone. Otherwise, it would be called sure-thing-taking.  Would NASA ever have gotten off the ground if tens of thousands of people, from politicians to engineers to astronauts were not willing to take risks?

In order to learn, we need to take risks.  We need to push beyond our comfort zone.  Too many of our students are so worried about counting points that they are afraid to do anything original - they are afraid to take risks because they are afraid to fail.

Randy Nelson, Dean of Pixar University said, “The core skill of an innovator is error recovery, not failure avoidance.”  We could easily re-write this quote to say, “The core skill of a learner is error recovery, not failure avoidance.”

What would have happened to the people in this video if they would have avoided future failures instead of recovering?

Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) education has gotten a lot of attention in the press over the past few years.  Quite simply, having a well educated and innovative STEM workforce is critical to the economic security and prosperity of the United States. More importantly, a solid STEM education provides all of our children with a strong foundation to “keep the door open” on many opportunities throughout their lives.

I was recently speaking with a CEO of a company that prioritizes hiring of scientists, mathematicians and economists because they are good problem solvers.  They are creative, yet able to analyze data and trends.  He told me that hiring those types of people is a very competitive process - he may only have a few candidates that are also being recruited by other companies.  On the other hand, he adds, when we hire someone with a business background, we might have 50-100 (or more) applicants for a single position.

Payscale, Inc. released a report that ranked undergraduate college degrees by median starting salary and mid-career salary (w/o graduate degree).  Seven of the top 10 majors were in engineering.  The other three (economics, physics and computer science) all require a significant “STEM” background.  In fact, every career in the top 20 (marketing comes in at 21) requires substantial science, technology, engineering and/or mathematics coursework.

Methodology Annual pay for Bachelors graduates without higher degrees. Typical starting graduates have 2 years of experience; mid-career have 15 years. See full methodology for more.

40% of the top 20 majors are engineering majors (50% if you include computer science and construction management/engineering). I am in the process of sifting through survey data that I collected from about 380 ninth grade students regarding their perceptions of engineering as a profession. The one finding that quickly jumped out was that the average 9th grade student could identify just over one type of engineer. How are our students supposed to be prepared for STEM fields if they don’t even know that they exist!

Oh yeah, and why is it abnormal for high schools to actually have engineering courses (except Massachusetts -standards)?  Engineering isn’t an “emerging” profession - it has been around long enough for schools (and policymakers) to have noticed.

If you are interested in putting more engineering into your teaching, check out:

• American Society for Engineering Educatin’s Engineering K12 Center
• PBS Design Squad
• Boston Museum of Science - National Center for Technological Literacy
• Boston Museum of Science - Engineering is Elementary

So, Chris Matthews wanted to know if the Republicans are anti-science.  He invited a Republican and a Democat on his show to discuss.  The Republican did a fantastic job of sowing doubt…by rehashing all of the old, tired and debunked anti-anthropomorphic climate change arguments.  The Democrat and Matthews didn’t have the science background to discuss any of these.  So, why not have a real scientist join in the debate?  A scientist would have cleaned the Republican’s clock.

Watch the full video here.

Dana Rohrabacher’s (R-California) big “science” points and rebuttals.

1. Change in temperature on Mars and Jupiter.

Mars has a very thin atmosphere and has frequent dust storms.  Large dust storms change the albedo of the planet and reduce the reliability of telescope-based temperature measurements.  The empirical data is not conclusive for climate change on Mars.

Heat transfer within Jupiter’s atmosphere is very complicated.  Temperatures are increasing in equitorial regions, but cooling in polar regions.

2. Historical fluctuations in Earth’s temperatue.

No one denies that Earth’s climate fluctuates.  However, the natural causes for climate change have remained relatively stable since the 1970’s.  The change in global temperature that we are seeing is due to human impact on the atmosphere.

3. Temperature has not increased since 1998.

1998 was abnormally warm because of a very strong “El Nino” effect.  Long-term global mean temperatures show a statistically significant increase in temperature over the past decade.

4. It is the Sun.

The correlation between increased sunspots and increasing temperature ended in the late 1970’s or early 1980’s.  Sunspot activity is decreasing, yet temperature continues to increase.

4. Greenland used to be green.

Dana claims that 1000 years ago, Greenland used to be green.  The current ice sheet on Greenland is at least 110,000 years old and Greenland has been ice covered for hundreds of thousands of years.

Why do Republican elected officials hate science? This is absolutely disgusting.

A few weeks ago, I posted about the Republicans old new attack against climate change.  Instead of providing solutions, they just keep denying that there is a problem.  Heck, it would even be more tolerable if they admitted there was a problem, but fought any action on the basis of the current state of our economy.  But, that is not what they are doing.

Republicans are continuing their attack on the science of climate change by saying that carbon dioxide can’t be a pollutant because it is created naturally (reminder to GOP: so is arsenic).  It can’t be bad for us because we need it to live.

This time, they added a new twist.  Since carbon dioxide is “natural,” it must be created by God.  We can’t regulate God.  Seriously, Rep Barton (R-TX) said this. The Ranking member on the House Energy & Commerce Committee said this.

During Barton’s time on C-Span he also said that no one has gone to the hospital due to carbon dioxide poisoning.  I guess we can forgive his ignorance, because carbon dioxide poisoning is usually called hypercapnia. He also said:

we are not a European country, so we can’t drive smaller, more fuel efficient cars because our “culture” is based on the need to drive really big vehicles long distances.

AND-

So, there is a, there is a climate theory and it’s a theory, it’s not a fact, it’s never been proven- that increasing concentrations of CO2 in the upper atmosphere somehow interact to trap more heat than the atmosphere would otherwise.

Rep Barton thinks he is smarter than the US Secretary of Energy, but somehow is so ill informed about the nature of science that he doesn’t even know what a theory is.  A theory is a robust scientific explanation for a natural phenomena. It is based on evidence.  The larger the body of supporting evidence, the stronger the theory.  Here is a good primer on how science works.

Rep Barton also state that it has “never been proven that increasing concentrations of CO2 in the upper atmosphere somehow interact to trap more heat…”  Here is a kid friendly primer on the greenhouse effect. Perhaps it is in simple enough language that Rep Barton can understand it (Note: This is an EPA website that was created in 2006 - when the EPA was under Republican control).  Although Rep Barton says that this greenhouse “theory” has never been proven, he also says that it is necessary.  As the kid friendly primer says, the Earth would be 60oF cooler if it wasn’t for the greenhouse effect.  I know this is hard to grasp, sometimes things are good for us in moderation.  A “moderate” greenhouse effect is necessary for life on Earth.  Too little, we freeze.  Too much, we boil.  Too little, we get Mars.  Too much, we get Venus.

CO2 is ubiquitous so regulating it is like shuffling the chairs on the deck of the titanic.

I find this last comment rather interesting. The titanic sunk.  If Barton thinks that climate change is a bunch of BS, what is with the Titanic reference?  If he thinks that climate change is an environmental issue worthy of a “Titanic” reference, is he saying that we might as well not try to do anything because it is too big of a problem?

Watch it here:

The National Science Education Standards clearly communicate that by the end of 8th grade, U.S. students are expected to have an understanding of the structure of the earth, lithospheric plates, and the theory of continental drift (plate tectonics).

As a result of activities in grades 5-8, all students should develop understanding of:

Structure of the Earth System

• The solid earth is layered with a lithosphere; hot, convecting mantle; and dense, metallic core.
• Lithospheric plates on the scales of continents and oceans constantly move at rates of centimeters per year in response to movements in the mantle. Major geological events, such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and mountain building, result from these plate motions.

Earth’s History

The earth processes we see today, including erosion, movement of lithospheric plates, and changes in atmospheric composition, are similar to those that occurred in the past. Earth history is also influenced by occasional catastrophes, such as the impact of an asteroid or comet.

As a science educator, I take these things seriously, so, imagine my shock when I saw a video of Rep Joe Barton (R-TX) and Dr. Steven Chu (physicist, Nobel Laureate, former director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and current U.S. Secretary of Energy).  Rep Barton’s office posted this video of Joe “stumping” Dr. Chu on a simple question (04/22/09).

Holy cow fart!  The Secretary of Energy got stumped on a question about where the oil in Alaska comes from!  What a moron!  Oh, wait, perhaps the Nobel Laureate, a person who normally works with really smart people™ was surprised that a United States Congressman asked him a question basic to that Congressman’s oversight and creation of energy policy.  Perhaps the former director of the Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory and expert on alternative energy, thought he was testifying at a Congressional energy committee hearing, not an 8th grade science classroom?

Rep Barton, your ignorance is appalling.  Watching you revel in your ignorance disgusts me. Watching your smug #!@ make a fool of yourself - priceless.  Our country deserves better leaders.

Yes, Rep Barton, it just drifted there.  You might want to watch these two videos before your next committee hearing (Thanks Slick for sending these to me).

Science is a human endeavor to understand the world.  What sets science apart from other ways of understanding is the critical assumption that the world can be understood by using natural evidence.  Scientists can not use the supernatural, magic, or gremlins in their explanations.  Without this assumption, advances in technology, medicine, and other sciences would be severely hampered.

Scientists have determined that the average temperature of the Earth has increased over the past 100 years.  The rate of this increase is not consistent with normal Earth cycles.  If science allowed supernatural explanations, we could simply state that Mr. Heat Miser was finally beating his brother, Mr. Snow Miser.

Thankfully, most people are not satisfied with that explanation.  Over the past couple of decades, scientists have determined that human (we are part of the natural world) production of carbon dioxide (primarily through the increased use of fossil fuels as a result of industrialization) has increased the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which has increased the greenhouse effect.

or, a less colorful explanation…

Religion is another way of understanding the world.  The core of religion is faith – the belief in a supernatural being (God) without evidence.  Because of these different assumption, science and religion can come into conflict – primarily, when science conflicts with a specific religious belief (evolution vs. creation).

I assumed that there would not be too much conflict between religion and science when it came to climate change.  Heck, Christians believe that humans are stewards of God’s creation. I guess I was wrong.

Rep Shimkus (R-IL) [of plant food fame] concludes that we shouldn’t worry about climate change because the Bible states, “The earth will end only when God declares its time to be over.”  Shimkus says that we shouldn’t worry about the negative human impact on the Earth because the bible states, “Man will not destroy this earth.”  And those Climate Change Alarmists’ cries that global warming will result in a rising sea-level?  Don’t worry,  God states, “This earth will not be destroyed by a flood.”  So hey, pollute away –

But, but, but…the Bible doesn’t mention dinosaurs.  Oh, and floods won’t destroy the Earth…but rising sea levels could pose some big problems for humans.

This reminds me of a story a priest told in a homily I heard many years ago.

A man was at his house during a flood.  As the waters reached his doorstep, a policeman drove up and offered to help him evacuate.  The man said, “No, I have faith and God will save me.”  The policeman left for the next house.

A few hours later, the depth of the water had risen to the top of the first floor.  The man had moved to his bedroom on the second floor.  A rescue boat came by and offered to evacuate him.  The man said, “No, I have faith and God will save me.” The boaters moved on to find others.

Another couple of hours past and the water had risen to the roofline.  The man was desparately clinging to his chimney.  A helicopter came by and the rescuers offeret to take him to safety.  The man said, “No, I have faith and God will save me.”  The rescuers shook their heads and moved on.

The water continued to rise. Eventually, the man drowned. He arrived at the gates of Heaven, where he met St. Peter. The man said, “St. Peter, I am a faithful man, why did God not save me?”

St. Peter replied, “Umm…we sent a car, a boat, and a helicopter.”